


Reavers

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Series: Krem Story Time [5]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Baby Animals, F/M, Fluff, Kittens, kittens are psychotic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 07:18:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5904736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things are hard to resist. Kittens, for example.</p>
<p>At least until you can't give them back...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reavers

**Author's Note:**

> And the last prompt! This one was "baby animals" and while I was going to write something about Bull and a baby dragon, this is what happened instead.

Krem looks at the ball of fluff in Lace's hand with growing horror. "You didn't," he says, and it comes out as an accusation.

"I couldn't help it," she says, laughing and defensive at the same time. "How was I supposed to say no to this?"

With her other hand, she gestures at the kitten, who chooses that moment to open its eyes and mew piteously. Young as it is, its eyes are still blue and its cry sounds more like a bird than a cat, a high pitched almost-chirp that Krem can barely hear.

Its teeth are all present and accounted for, though, sharp and white and just waiting for some hapless fingers to pass by. Krem has raised kittens before, and he knows what's involved, and he knows how to say no even when presented with a helpless bit of fluff. That helpless bit of fluff can turn into a reaver at any moment, capable of rending anything it can get its needle-like claws and teeth into, with no regard for its own safety.

So when Stitches showed him the box earlier today, Krem smiled and nodded and said no without a moment's hesitation. Helpless balls of nascent-reaver fluff? He can say no to that.

It's a lot harder to say no to the look Lace is giving him now.

###

By the time they've fed it and rubbed it with a damp cloth in hopes of teaching it to clean itself one day, Lace is still enamored and Krem is thawing. There is something endearing about it as it staggers around their room, stubby tail waving and tiny feet tripping over each other like a batch of new recruits who can't keep their shields in line. It already has a painful bite--Krem spares a moment to pity the mother who had to nurse them all--but with gloves on, it isn't that bad.

And when they put it in its nest of rags, it snuffles and burrows into them in a way that makes even Krem smile.

Lace hooks a finger in the front of his shirt to pull him down for a kiss, and he obligingly goes to his knees to even out their heights. "See?" she says, smiling against his mouth. "Not so bad as all that."

"Give it time," he says, but he's smiling, too, and more than happy to go along when she deepens the kiss.

Her tongue licks over his lips, and he lets her in, his fingers already working the pins holding up her hair. He loves her hair, even if she pretends to be annoyed when it falls in her face during sex, and any excuse to take it down is-

"Ow!" he yells, jerking away as a dozen needles sink into his thigh and begin to work their way upward. "Ow, _fuck_!"

Lace chokes on a laugh. "Maybe not tonight," she says, and he glares at her as she grins unrepentantly.

His attempts to remove the kitten from his leg are successful in that he no longer has tiny claws in his skin, but not so successful in that he now has a handful of kitten who wants to play. Of course, its definition of "play" involves pouncing drunkenly on his thumb and nearly tumbling to the ground. Krem catches it before the less kindly disposed part of him can intervene and let it fall.

"Your kitten," he says to Lace, who's still laughing, though at least now she's trying to pretend she's not, "is a fucking reaver."

"Maybe Bull can teach it something," Lace says, right as the kitten makes a second, more successful, assault on his fingers.

"Fuck," Krem mutters again, trying to find a way to hold the kitten that doesn't leave his fingers as unprotected targets. "It doesn't need to learn anything, it's dangerous enough already."

"Awwww," Lace coos, scooping it out of his hands to hold it in front of her face, "hello, my baby reaver. Are you learning?"

It bats at her nose, and she laughs, tilting her head out of its limited reach. "You can take it with you," she says, grinning at Krem. "Didn't you say the Chargers are always looking for new recruits?"

Krem doesn't even bother to grace that with a reply, too busy inspecting the teeth marks on his fingers.

"Or maybe I'll take you with me," she goes on. "I'm sure the ravens would love you, wouldn't they?"

Based on size alone, the raven seems the safe choice to bet on in that fight, but Krem knows reavers, and he knows the damage they can do. Even small ones.

The kitten is making mewling noises again, and Lace sets it down to fetch the milk and rag they were using to feed it earlier. It's still too small to drink from a saucer, though it made a valiant attempt until it snorted milk up its nose. The rag seems a safer choice, for now, no matter how amusing the kitten looked as it shook its head and blinked.

It clambers awkwardly to its feet from where Lace set it down and begins to stagger after her. When it gets as far as Krem's knee, though, it stops and sniffs.

He tenses, waiting for it to make another attempt at scaling him, but it only strops its face against his leg, coming up on its hind paws to repeat the motion higher, then stretching upward to bat at the air a few inches shy of his fingers.

Knowing he's going to regret it but unable to resist, Krem bends at the waist to close the distance. Instead of biting, though, the kitten rubs against his fingertips and begins to purr, louder than a full-grown cat ten times its size. Krem can feel the vibration where it leans against him.

"The Maker hates me," Krem says, as Lace returns with the bowl of milk.

"Oh?"

"This should not be charming," he says, scratching the kitten gently behind the ears and shaking his head as the purring somehow gets louder. "The Maker designed them like this, didn't He?"

"Likely so we wouldn't kill them, yes."

When he looks up from the ball of purring reaver-fluff, she's smiling, close enough to kiss. So he does.

Until the kitten bites him.


End file.
